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Tuck Support -*- Copyright 2003 by Ellen Hayes.
Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.
This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex. If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this. I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
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All rights reserved. See the bottom for distribution rights.
Tuck Support
***
21:51 19 Sep
I threw Travis's hand off my shoulder and ducked and weaved my way
through the sparse crowd that had collected around us. More hands
reached out, but I evaded them all, and then I was in the clear. And
running.
***
21:55 19 Sep
*Why does he have to treat me like a damned BABY?!* I wondered, not
for the first time, as I sat there in a locked stall, curled up as best
I could manage. *Shit, I'm almost as old as he is; I've done plenty of
stuff in my life; I could take care of myself BEFORE I met him, and he
fucking KNOWS that-*
"Valerie?" asked a voice, and I pulled my legs up and stifled my
mouth reflexively. "It's Jack's friend Lily? You in here?"
"Yeah," I admitted quietly.
"Come on out," she coaxed. "At least out of the stalls."
***
21:58 19 Sep
"Yeah, I hate it when guys do that," Lily agreed as she leaned
casually against the sinks. "I mean, just because I ain't got a dick
don't mean I'm completely stupid, you know?"
I nodded. "Although I think it's the other way around; the dick
makes 'em dumber," I remarked, and she chuckled.
"Ain't it the damned truth," she sighed as her laughter slowed.
***
22:02 19 Sep
"You know, he didn't know where you were, and you HAD just fainted,
right?" I nodded. "So he was just worried, I guess; wanted to make
sure you hadn't hit your head and you're wanderin' around like a head
case or somethin'."
"Yeah, I guess," I had to admit. "But why did he have to be such a
prick about it?"
"He was just worried, and you know how men are, they can't ADMIT
they were worried or nothin', so he had to make it into a case. Right?
'Specially in front of his friends," Lily added. "They might think he
was all worried about you or somethin'."
"Well he was!"
"Yeah, but what would they have done if he let that show, huh?
You've seen guys do it; they'd be raggin' his ass about it all night,
callin' him a puss an' stuff, teasin' him, right? Least, that's what
he's afraid of."
***
22:07 19 Sep
"I'm sorry," I sighed to Travis, hoping he wasn't too mad at me.
"Yeah, me too," he rumbled softly.
Then he held out his hand, hesitantly, and I took it.
"Don't you two feel better now?" Lily asked us, and I know I
nodded, even though I couldn't look up. I felt really stupid for
overreacting.
***
22:14 19 Sep
"Man, this stupid game would be tons easier if it was like pool," I
complained as yet another shot went off into the ozone, relatively
speaking. 'Hit ball with stick' SHOULD have been easier than this
stupid game-
"Like billiards?" Jack asked, and grinned.
***
22:17 19 Sep
"Chalk and everything?" I asked in great surprise, and Jack nodded.
"Oh man!" I said as I bounced happily, and then I hugged him.
"Hey, get off me," he said casually. "No girls with sticks," he
added, and started laughing. I contemplated beating him with the pool
cue, but decided that there were too many witnesses and it was too
brightly lit.
Instead, I went back to the game of para-golf, which was going, I
was resolved, to take a nice turn in my favor, since I was now equipped
with what I considered a far superior stick for hitting balls.
***
22:20 19 Sep
Swish, swish, swish, went the windmill blades, and my eyeballs.
Finally, I had the timing, and made my shot, which went straight
through the hole in the windmill without even bouncing off the sides,
and thus straight into the cup on the other side. "Hah!" I crowed in
triumph as I got up and off the astroturf, and proceeded to dust myself
off.
"You are evil with that," Bobby commented with a laugh. I just
gave him my best evil grin and went to go get my ball out.
***
22:24 19 Sep
I lay on my side, feeling sick. "You'd think I'd have gotten the
hint the first time," I sighed.
"Good thing he's all prepared," Bobby sniggered at Travis. I
contemplated getting up and beating him with the pool cue, but decided
that I still felt too queasy.
"Travis?" I called, and motioned him down to my mouth. "I don't
have this problem when we're doing the nasty," I reminded him.
"When you feel okay, we'll go to my house, I promise," he promised.
I lay back and concentrated on that, which had to make me feel better
than thinking about me and that damned windmill, and the skin it was
peeling off-
*Don't THINK about that!* I yelled at myself.
***
22:58 19 Sep
"Ohhhhh," I sighed into Travis' chest after he'd locked us inside
his apartment. "Safe at LAST."
"What?" he asked.
"Just hold me," I pleaded, this time pulling my face out of his
shirt so he could hear me.
***
23:37 19 Sep
"I could get used to this foreplay thing," I mentioned.
"Yeah, it's nice," he agreed. I think he was just saying that
because it was his idea, and he was trying to entice me into having sex
with him, but whatthehell, it was working. And it felt really good to
have him rubbing me, and touching me, and warming me up, and kissing me,
and tasting me, and...
***
00:33 19 Sep
I sat on the hood of my car, feeling pleasantly sore in some places
and extremely relaxed just about everywhere, and stroked Travis' face
for a while before pulling him into another warming hug. "I miss you
already," I sighed.
***
07:00 20 Sep
"Bedoop!"
"Shut the fuck up," I groaned. "Just leave me alone! What did I
ever do to you?" I whined.
The MacinClock declined to answer at the moment, but I knew it was
just biding its time...
***
07:57 20 Sep
Everyone, just about, looked like I did - sort of hung over, trying
to wake up, and desperately unhappy in a dull sort of way to be here
today. I had a coke, but there was a lot of coffee, and I smelled at
least one person with espresso.
Then again, if it was fun, they probably wouldn't use it as
punishment. There was a good chance that if it was fun, they wouldn't
have used it as a reward, either, this being the school system.
***
08:22 20 Sep
Cleaning up the gym after a dance was not my favorite thing to do,
but at least I was stuck on a crew with mostly girls, and mostly with
lower class girls too. Well, lower grade. Whatever. In any case,
being female and younger than me, they were a little less confident
about attacking me physically, or throwing things at me when I was bent
down or turned my back on them, and I could care less about their social
and emotional abuse. I mean, they were practically a seperate species
anyway; Homo Mundanus.
In any case, there was a lot of trash, slime on the floors, stuff
in the bathrooms I did NOT want to think about, streamers and other
decorations still on the walls to set on fire- well, that was my idea.
***
09:44 20 Sep
The sad thing was, this was an almost ideal way to see if they'd
changed anything in the wiring, in daylight and with the big lights on.
I don't think Mrs. Prilchard had realized that it was going to save me a
night's work at some point this semester. Ah well.
As it turned out, it seemed they still hadn't found our jackpoints,
and the PA system was the same. I did have an idea for a few things to
do with the lighting, but I wasn't sure it would be worth the cost of
the equipment. I had to take mental notes to discuss with Mike later,
if I ever got out of here. They'd said they wouldn't let us out until
the gym was clean again, and by the way the bimbos were (not) working, I
might not make it out before cosmetology class Monday.
"Eugene Tucker?" some adult called, and the bimbos tittered.
"Oh, Finagle, what's it now?" I complained to myself, since I was
the only one in the gym worth talking to.
***
09:46 20 Sep
Coach Reed asked me, "Where's your father?"
"None of your business," shot out of my mouth before I thought
about something else to say. Then I realized that it was a perfectly
appropriate response.
"Don't get an attitude with me," he snarled. I guessed that was
because he already had one and he didn't want the competition. "Where
is he?"
"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it may incriminate
me," I stated formally. "Can I get back to work now?"
***
09:50 20 Sep
The evidence for abusive treatment in school was piling up, as
Coach wasn't too shy about hauling me around by the arm; I had enough
bruises at that point that I could claim he'd done anything, and there
were enough kids around that would wilt under a formal subpoena that I'd
have plenty of involuntary witnesses stating he'd been doing this in
public.
Finally he dragged me to the door of Dobson's office and let go of
my arm before his boss (my ex-homeroom teacher) saw him doing it. *Too
late,* I smirked, as I rubbed my arm.
***
09:51 20 Sep
"So where is your father?" Dobson asked me.
Since he was smarter than any coach, I figured I could take the
shortcut and say, "I plead the Fifth."
"What?"
*Well, I guess not.* "I refuse to answer that question on the
grounds it may incriminate me."
"What?" he gasped incredulously, eyes bulging a bit.
"That's what he said earlier," Coach Reed complained.
Dobson gaped at me for several seconds, and I shrugged my
shoulders. I had my orders, and Dad would reward me far more for
sticking to them, than these people would reward me for breaking them.
Finally, Dobson said, to Coach, "I, uh... I'll try and handle this
here." Coach eventually left, though I could feel the glare on the back
of my neck as he left. When he shut the door, Dobson waited a while,
then asked me quietly, "Can you tell me now?" I just shook my head.
"Why not?"
I gave him an incredulous look.
He sighed, and began digging his fingers into his forehead as he
stared down at his desk. I shifted a little on my feet, and made sure
my knees were bent a bit so I wouldn't pass out, and waited.
Finally, he put his head up and asked, sounding sort of desperate,
"Don't you want to know WHY I want to know?"
I shrugged again. "If you want to tell me," I allowed. I had
wondered that, in between trying to gauge what I could get out of Dad as
a reward for my silence this time.
***
09:57 20 Sep
I shook my head at Dobson as I said, "Okay, thanks," and hung up
the phone. "He's out of state," I said, and did not add, 'and you're
out of luck', because Dad could only work on so many sites at a time,
and replacing most of a server cluster was going to take up most of his
capacity for perhaps the entire weekend, if not longer. It would have
been cruel to add anything else. "What's wrong?"
Dobson looked at me, then frowned a bit as he apparently looked
harder at me.
***
09:59 20 Sep
"No, I'm not QUITE as good as Dad," I emphasized, "but on the other
hand, I'm here and he's not; and further, I'm cheaper than he is. My
rate's lower since I don't have all the certs and stuff," I explained.
"Am I supposed to trust YOU with the school computers?" Dobson
asked, sort of scornfully, like he'd caught the trap I was digging for
him. Except, I wasn't.
"A, like you could keep me out of them anyway, if I wanted in," I
snapped angrily. Dad had promised me one of his exceptionally rare
birch-rod whippings if I messed around with my grades, a long time ago.
"And B, if you pay me money that's a contract, and I can't break a
contract like that." Also a birch-rod offense.
"I suppose you're telling me to trust you," he stated flatly, like
that was the last thing he was going to do.
"Hey, fuck you," I snarled as I got up. "Fix your own damned
system if you're gonna be that way about it. Or wait for Dad, whichever
you want. I don't have to put up with this," I said over my shoulder as
I walked out.
"Where are you going?" he called.
"I have to clean the gym!" I called back, not stopping.
"Wait," he pleaded, and he sounded closer than his office. I
pivoted around on one foot, and he was standing in the doorway. "You
say you can fix the computers?"
"I say I'm the best you can find today, on a Saturday afternoon,
and I'm better than most," I expanded. "I can also get installation
sets for the systems here; Dad has 'em in his safe."
"How can I-" I must've started looking pissed again, because he
interrupted himself hurriedly with, "When we hired your father, HE could
provide references; can you provide some references for your work and
your discretion?"
I had opened my mouth, but shut it as I got what he was saying.
*Yeah, I guess that makes sense...* Unfortunately, the best available
reference was also the same person Dobson had tried to call in the first
place. *Hey-*
"Call my mom," I suggested with a shrug.
***
10:03 20 Sep
"She wants to speak to you," Dobson said as he handed me the phone.
"Hi, Mom," I said as I took it.
"Is that really your school principal?" Mom asked.
"Mom! Like I'd lie about something like this? What'd Dad do to me
when they refused to pay the bill?"
"As long as you realize that-"
"MOM! Duh! It's my butt on the line," literally, "and I'm NOT
stupid enough to lie about it!" I was beginning to think I'd rather be
back in the gym mopping snot and vomit out of the restrooms-
"Alright, all right," she said calmingly, which didn't work. "Do
your best, and call me when you're done, alright?"
"Okay Mom," I sighed. "Also I need some stuff out of Dad's data
safe..." I told her which disks I needed (hoping that Dad had filed
them by name like he was supposed to this time) and she repeated them
all back to me.
"Put Mister Dobson back on," she ordered.
***
10:06 20 Sep
Dobson hung up the phone, finally, and then reached into his back
pocket as he half got up. *Wha-*
"Aw man!" I sighed as he pulled out a ten dollar bill, but I took
it eventually. Mom must've told him about the Binding. Now I was
seriously Stuck.
"Your mother said that would do as a down payment," he said, sort
of curious sounding.
"Urgh," I complained, then motioned him away from the desk. "Get
up, I gotta see what's going on."
***
10:09 20 Sep
"Oh boy," I said, wincing, as I continued to fingerdance on the
keyboard. "Oh, this is not good at all."
***
10:12 20 Sep
"You need this up by when?" I asked.
"Monday morning at the absolute latest," he moaned. "We need to
submit progress reports to the school district by Monday, and we can't
be late again or-"
"When did you take your last backup? Friday night?"
He winced.
"Oh no," I groaned. "Tell me you make regular backups?" I pleaded.
"Uh, the secretary who did that, left last year-"
"WHY DID YOU NOT MAKE BACKUPS?!" I shrieked. "I KNOW you have the
equipment, I helped screw it into the boxen! What is WRONG with you!?"
His mouth worked a few times, but nothing came out. He just looked
agonized at me.
***
10:16 20 Sep
"What the hell are you little shits doing?" I asked rhetorically,
as I found some further damage. They were romping all over the place.
***
10:18 20 Sep
"'Lo?"
"Mike, Tuck. You 'wake?"
"Uh. Kinda. Whatsup?"
"Someone's hacking the school systems, trying to keep their grades
from going out I guess, and Dad's outta town. Guess who that leaves to
fix the problem?"
"You're shitting me," Mike enunciated perfectly.
"No. Dobson said. Dobson PAID."
"Oh my god," he prayed.
When I figured he'd absorbed the shock, I told him, "I need you to
go to my house, pick up my laptop and my CD cases - the data ones, not
the music ones, in the rack by Regina, you know which-"
"I can read," he interrupted. I did have most of them labeled.
"That, whatever disks Mom gives you, radio gear, and my repair
cart, and bring 'em up to main admin at McAllen. And pick up a pack of
Dew; Dobson'll pay you back for it," I declared.
Mike sighed, "Oh, hell... Give me another ten or fifteen minutes,
and I need to get some food soon, and I'll be there."
"Out."
"Hugo out," he said, and hung up, so I got back to the console.
***
10:47 20 Sep
"I get paid for this, right?" Mike announced as he came in.
"A third of what I get," I said as I got up. "Stop bothering me."
"Yes Bwana."
I ignored him; I desperately needed those disks, and having my own
computer, or one of them, could only help, since it was the only one
around here I could be sure was invulnerable to what the little weefles
had done.
***
10:53 20 Sep
"Ooops," I commented smugly.
"What oops?" Mike asked from somewhere behind me.
"'Oops' I just wiped out their base system with an exe bomb," I
smirked, and went back to working on the local system. "That oughta
slow the little fuckers down." I was feeling a bit irritated at them.
Well, a lot irritated. It was one thing to steal exam questions and
stuff like that, but trying to wipe stuff out that the school needed to
send to the board was just WRONG.
***
10:58 20 Sep
"Nighty night," I said to the terminal server and the banks of
modems just before I flipped the breaker and killed all of them.
"Aren't you supposed to..." Dobson stopped when I glared at him.
***
14:22 20 Sep
Someone was complaining over Mike, so I yelled, "Quiet! Don't
bother me! Go talk to Dobson!"
I caught, on the fringes of my perception, Mike going, "I told you
so," but I was way busy.
***
21:45 20 Sep
"I wish to lie down now," I told Mike, very carefully, because I
wasn't sure how well my mouth was working.
"Nuh uh, you gotta call Dobson and your mom first, and then you
have to eat something."
"Miiiiiiiike!" I whined.
***
21:48 20 Sep
"What time is- yikes!" Well, that would explain why it looked so
dark outside. "They let us stay in here this late?"
"Dobson said, in case you don't remember, that-"
"You know fucking well I was busy!" I snapped. My memory for
external events was not the best when I was in Deep Hack.
"Shut up or I'll pop you one," Mike commented. "Dobson said he'd
trust us. And then he paid me..." He started digging in his pocket.
"Oh, man!" I complained as Mike finally found a ten-spot in one of
his pockets and waved it at me.
"He Bound both of us," Mike confirmed. "How much do I get paid for
this again?"
***
21:50 20 Sep
"All done," I told Dobson on the phone. "As in, it's restored to
the state it was at about six this morning, before anything happened,
PLUS the backup you weren't doing, PLUS a patch to close off that route,
PLUS updates of your software, including the anti-virus stuff you're
supposed to get updates for monthly..."
It made me sick; I could do TONS of useful things with all this
hardware, or the equivalent power in a half-dozen big iron boxen anyway,
and they treated it like this.
"And if you don't have a fresh backup to show me or Dad next time
anything happens, the price doubles," I finished.
***
21:51 20 Sep
Dobson had finally run down, so I finished, "And I am serious about
the backup thing; you're screwing yourself if you don't do it. And you
need to come let us out so we can go home." Actually, he needed to lock
up behind us; I didn't much care at this point myself, but it would
worry him if he left it physically open, and we had our ways in anyway.
"And you owe us dinner," Mike said.
"And you owe us dinner," I said. Then I said, "What? Wait..."
***
22:17 20 Sep
Mike was smirking over his good luck, until he saw my face. I
didn't see my face; what I saw was Dobson's wife in the car that was
pulling up. "Oh no," I moaned.
"What the hell have you done THIS time?!" Mike snarled as he
started shaking me.
"It's not my fault!" I shrieked, because the shaking was rattling
my nipples around, and that HURT.
***
22:19 20 Sep
I cradled my sorely abused, and sore, nipples, as Mike oozed on the
Dobsons, "Yeah, she thinks it would be best to take a shower before she
goes anywhere in public, and as you can see she's really not dressed
well either." Well enough for Saturday detention, or running around
resuscitating boxen and recovering data, I thought; but then, I hadn't
planned on being sociable afterwards either. "So, she said you took her
home a while ago," Mike confirmed.
"Rachel's," I corrected.
Mike went on, "So can you catch us there in maybe half an hour?"
***
22:43 20 Sep
"I don't WANT to eat, I want to SLEEP!" I bitched at Mike.
"Ah well, too bad," he said, as full of sympathy for me as he
usually was. "Hey, does Rachel wanna come?"
"She's going out already," I told him as I toweled my hair some
more. "I asked."
***
23:00 20 Sep
"You look much nicer, and refreshed," Mrs. Dobson told me
approvingly.
"Oh, thank you," I smiled, wishing she would leave me the hell
alone so I could escape from Mike and crawl under a bush somewhere and
get some sleep. I damned well should look nicer, being dressed now in a
nice dark red dress Mike had picked out - he'd gotten impatient when I'd
timed out inside Rachel's closet - and with makeup and my hair done,
rather than in fatigues and sneaks and my Quake/Werewolves headrag.
***
23:21 20 Sep
As we were waiting for a table, which looked like it might take a
while, I noticed that Mike was wearing a different, and much nicer,
shirt than he'd started with. I also realized I wasn't at the top of my
form tonight, since he hadn't changed here or in the car, and I was
pretty sure he'd been wearing his usual T shirt at school...
"Where'd you get the shirt?"
"Borrowed it from Dave, Rachel's roommate," he explained.
"Uh, Mike, you know he's..."
"About my size?" he grinned, and wiggled his eyebrows at me, so I
let it drop. "Besides, it was sort of his idea anyway."
"Might be contaminated with cooties," I said.
Which, for some bizarre reason, seemed to awaken my bladder, which
sent me a priority 3 signal. "Oh man," I sighed, but I decided I might
as well service it now, rather than wait until it got to be urgent.
***
23:23 20 Sep
Well, every other woman and girl did it, so I shouldn't have been
surprised when Mrs. Dobson came with me to the restroom. I was anyway.
"So are you and Michael dating?" she asked as she checked her
makeup in the mirror.
"Ohgodno," I spasmed. "He's my brother, basically; my best friend.
Dating him..." I shook my head; it was too horrible to think about.
***
23:27 20 Sep
Mike signed me that he had something, so I moved closer to him and
away from the Dobsons, and he whispered in my ear, "Dobson was going to
come by himself, but his wife forced the story out of him and invited
herself along. She wanted a snack after the concert, he said she said."
"Great," I sighed.
"He said to pass along an apology," Mike continued, "but he said he
was pretty sure you could cope with it even though he couldn't warn us."
"Remind me to beat him with a stick at some point," I requested.
"Sometime after you explain to me just why he's so cool with this?"
"Uh. Classified, Mike; I can't. Ask Dobson to tell me to tell
you."
"Damnit," he sighed. "I hate this."
"Yeah, well, I ain't having a barrel of laughs with it either."
***
23:48 20 Sep
Dinner with them was not as horrible as it could have been, I
guess; it turned out they were both fairly human, and while they were
also fairly mundane, we did have some music in common, and Patty liked
BBC comedies, which at least had the virtue of being a cultural study.
It had been a while since I had watched any, since my weekends had been
really busy for months, but I remembered enough of the actors and
actresses to get some references, and she still remembered the older
ones that I'd actually seen.
And the food was good, which I liked, and they didn't have loud
music going, which I was NOT in the mood for... All in all, I had to
admit, this was one of Mike's better stupid ideas.
I had just finished one of my knishes when some motion towards the
entrance caught my eye, and when I looked-
"Travis?" I gasped as I half stood up. It was him, so I stood up
the rest of the way and waved furiously at him, before excusing myself
and going over to see him.
Mike's quiet, "Oh no," registered but I didn't think about it.
***
23:49 20 Sep
"I tried calling you and paging you, but you didn't answer," Travis
said.
"Sorry," I grimaced. "I was working on some stuff, and I was like
really deep into it, and I couldn't be interrupted." Except by Mike,
who seemed to have imprinted an NMI somewhere in my brain, but it was
okay, since it was Mike, and he knew pretty much when to use it. "What
did you guys do tonight?" I asked, since he wasn't here by himself.
***
23:51 20 Sep
"Mmmmmm..." I loved the way he kissed...
"So you want to come with us?" Travis asked me when we had to break
for air. *Oh YEAH-*
I remembered, "Oh, I can't, I came with..."
*Oh no. Oh, no. No, no no no...*
They were all looking at me, too. Patty was smiling, Mike just
looked flat, and Dobson himself- Well, he didn't look pleased. Or
well, either.
Travis said something, and I agreed, "Uh huh. I gotta go back,
okay?" I was kind of distracted; Dobson's face had sort of derailed my
brain.
"Sure," he said, and gave me another kiss - damn him - before he
let me go.
***
23:52 20 Sep
"So that's your boyfriend," Patty smiled at me. "How long have you
two been dating?"
Mike was just trying to melt. "Um..." Mike shrugged hopelessly at
me. "A, uh, a few months."
"Months?" Dobson peeped, and his wife gave him a strange look.
"Yeah, um, he doesn't go to our school, so, uh, nobody really sees
him..."
"And here he is!" Patty said as she got up.
"What?" I turned around as Patty and Dobson got up, and he was
indeed, putting down a chair at our table. "Uh-"
***
23:54 20 Sep
"Um... I did some computer work for Mister Dobson today, and Mike
somehow tricked them and me into going out to dinner as a bonus," I
edited for Travis. I figured that he'd freak worse than Mike had if he
realized what Dobson was in relation to me. After all, Dobson already
knew his side of the story, and he wasn't looking too well at the
moment.
Travis chuckled, and said, "Yeah, she's really good with
computers," and ruffled my hair.
"Hey!" I complained.
"How did he trick you?" Patty asked Dobson.
***
00:03 21 Sep
If this night got any more 'exciting', I was going to signal Mike,
we were going to throw a chair through the window and dive to escape,
and run away from home. Hopefully in my case to Travis' apartment, if I
didn't need to kill him; we'd have to think of something for Mike.
On the other hand, having Travis' arm around my shoulders was
physically comforting, and it wasn't as if Dobson was going to get any
worse. I didn't think it could get any worse with the ingredients we
had at the moment. And Mike wasn't kicking me either, for some reason.
Yet.
"You must be hungry," Patty commented as Travis finished his order
and folded up the menu.
"He's always hungry," I smiled.
"No I'm not," Travis disputed.
"Are! My god, you should've seen how much he ate Friday night!" I
said to Patty.
"You cooked it," Travis said. "How could I resist?"
"You cooked for him? How romantic," Patty smiled.
"I was cooking for the PARKERS," I reminded Travis sternly.
"Who?"
My head hurt, and this was all Mike's fault, so I kicked him.
***
01:17 21 Sep
"Next time," Mike sighed, "I get a bright idea like that, hit me,
will you?"
"I think I'll knock you unconscious," I promised as I slid the
dress off.
"Aw jeez, go do that somewhere else!" Mike complained
"Well, shit! If you don't want to watch, get out!"
***
01:46 21 Sep
"Ah!"
"Oh, you're home," Mom said casually, like she hadn't just scared
me nearly into a heart attack. "How did it go?"
"Gah," I answered. "Guh." Translated, it meant, 'This turns out
to be a good night to change at Rachel's before coming home, rather than
trying to sneak in.'
"It's a good thing I didn't decide to surprise you, then," Mom
remarked.
"Gah. I'd've exploded," I said as I regained some of my breath.
"What are you doing up?" I asked as I shut the front door and came all
the way in.
She shrugged, and looked a little embarrassed.
"What, pining for Dad?" She glared at me. "Gross, don't tell me
about it."
She sighed, then asked, "Did you get the bill filled out?" I had
to dig in my pack for a while, but eventually found the bill I'd printed
out - good thing Dad kept that form online where I could get to it - and
had Dobson sign before I left.
***
01:48 21 Sep
"You started at nine forty-five?" Mom asked.
"That was when one of the coaches pulled me out of the gym to ask
me where Dad was; he didn't get the Fifth thing, and so he took me to
the principal's office." I shrugged. "I figure the hassle started
then, so, so should the billing clock."
"I could argue that," Mom said idly, indicating she wouldn't. I
was very thankful she wouldn't. Besides, it was extra money. "Mike
helped?"
"Oh yeah," I nodded. "Big time. We had to pull cases and drives
to get the data off some of them, and he's as good with a screwdriver as
anyone."
***
01:53 21 Sep
Mom was in a huggy mood, just before we went to bed, but I guess I
was too. Or I was just completely tired out. *Don't have the Hack
Stamina I used to, I guess. Getting old,* I sighed to myself.
We stood there for a long time, but it was nice.
***
09:26 21 Sep
"Go away," I moaned, or tried to.
"See you in a bit!" Jill chirped.
***
09:30 21 Sep
"What?!" I shrieked at the MacinClock. "Oh shit!"
***
09:37 21 Sep
"What?!" My car was nowhere in sight. *Did that asshole tow it-*
"Oh shit!" I'd left it at school yesterday, or more precisely last
night. I ran back inside, praying that Mom didn't have any showings
this morning.
***
10:03 21 Sep
"You look tired," Sheila said as I came in.
"Hahahaha," I moaned. "I am tired."
"What's been going on?" she asked, predictably.
***
10:18 21 Sep
"Travis?" she asked.
*Damn, damn damn damn...* "Yeah," I confirmed, because it was too
late. "But we just played it cool, told them he was a friend of mine."
***
10:33 21 Sep
"About next week," she mentioned.
"Oh, jeeeeezzzzzzz," I moaned, and curled up in a little ball.
Pause.
*Kinda warm like this,* I realized, and unfolded myself by force of
will, because if I didn't I was going to go to sleep.
***
11:21 21 Sep
"Why do I love you?" I moaned at Jill.
"Because of my grace and charm," she snapped, and turned me around
and whacked me on the butt. "Get dressed!"
"Bitch," I sighed, and shut the door on them.
Which was a lucky move, because I heard Mom outside going, "Jill,
would you explain what I just heard?"
***
11:56 21 Sep
"And there's his wife, in the car," I explained to the crowd at our
table. Apparently Kelly now had a semi-permanent invite to breakfast,
or something, because she was here, and she'd been with Jill and Kim
when they got to my house.
"So?" Kim asked.
"So..."
"So, when Tuck and Rachel and Julia went out to listen to fancy
classical music, guess who they ran into?" Mike mentioned.
Pause.
"Oh no," Kim said, rather conversationally.
"Oh yeah," I nodded.
"That's when I started shaking Tuck," Mike continued. "I could see
something in his face..."
***
12:39 21 Sep
"You're paying for me, right?" Mike kidded.
Which apparently reminded Kim about my pay, because she dug out the
usual envelope and handed it to me.
Which reminded me, "Uh, Kim? I've got two doctor's appointments
this week, Wednesday and Thursday, and I don't think I can babysit
either day."
"Aw man," she sighed. "Okay."
"Oh, sh- When's the big one?" Mike asked.
"Thursday," I sighed.
"Big one?" Kelly asked about the same time Jill did.
"We get the results of all the tests I had a couple weeks ago?" I
reminded them.
"Oh," Kelly said, and Jill just rubbed my arm gently.
***
13:26 21 Sep
"How many?" I glared suspiciously at Brian. "Does Mom know about
this?"
"Shut up, dork," Brian said. "A'course she does. So get back in
the kitchen!" and his little friends all laughed.
I went back in the kitchen, but some of the girls guessed what I
was going to do, and talked me out of it.
***
14:29 21 Sep
There might have been a reason that Kelly was food shopping with me
and Jill, but I didn't know what it was, and I was sort of scared to
ask. Or worried that I'd get all pissed off, maybe. So I didn't ask.
***
16:34 21 Sep
"He'll be home, trust me," Mom assured me. "Free food."
"But he has to pay-"
"But, he didn't have to cook it, and he might not have to clean up
after it," Mom said. "That's free, to him." She made a crazy-sign
regarding that. I couldn't argue with that part.
***
17:03 21 Sep
When it had cooled enough, I put the spoonful in my mouth and
started chewing slowly. *Hmm, needs something,* I decided. *Mmmm...*
"Cheddar!" Brian called.
I stared at the stir fry, then looked up. "Do what?" Cheese - at
least cow-based cheese - did not go into stir fry, and even Brian should
know that by now.
"Have you seen cheddar?" he asked.
My brain made grinding noises trying to parse what he'd said.
"Uh, what?"
"Dork," he cursed, and left.
"What!?" I complained.
***
18:07 21 Sep
I was just about to dig into my salad when I heard the door open.
"Hellloooooooooo honey!" Dad sang out. "What's cookin'?"
"See?" Mom smirked at me.
"Oh, shut up."
***
19:11 21 Sep
The nice thing about having some of Brian's idiot friends over, is
that they too could be tapped for cleanup duty, which meant that there
was even less temptation to get me to do it. That was good, because I'd
have had to chase whoever suggested it with a knife, and I was too tired
and too full to make a really good attempt.
Outside being a bit too cold to hang on the porch, we were instead
hanging in the basement. Which was awfully crowded.
"Seventeen!" I complained when I'd counted everyone who ate supper
with us.
"What?" Kathy asked, sounding puzzled.
"Nothing," I grumbled, and twisted and sat up enough to wriggle
onto her lap, before draping my arms over her, my face in her cleavage,
and going to sleep.
***
19:38 21 Sep
"Uhhh?" I growled, far less than happy to have my sleep disturbed.
"Where," Mike said, too clearly and too loudly, "is your car?"
I thought about it, and decided I didn't care.
***
19:39 21 Sep
Someone saying, "_I_ can get him up," with lots of confidence, woke
me up immediately. I think it was Kathy that said it, but it sounded
too much like Susan, the old one.
"What?" I complained.
"Where's your car?" Kathy asked.
"Who cares?"
"I care," Mike said from behind me.
"Ohhhh... At school, I think."
"You left your car at school? Since Saturday?"
Pause.
***
19:41 21 Sep
"Tuck left his car at school, and we didn't think about it until
now," Mike explained to Mom, as I banged my head into a wall to wake up
quick. It wasn't as good as, say, amphetamines, but it worked faster.
"Eugene, stop that!" Mom ordered, but I was awake enough by now.
***
20:03 21 Sep
"Oh man," I sighed, sick.
***
20:24 21 Sep
"Someone spray painted it," I told Mom and Dad.
"They what?"
***
20:45 21 Sep
"Son of a bitch," Mom commented. That didn't appear to be on my
car; lots of other stuff was, though, like 'FAGGOT' and 'DIE QUEER' and
'HIT ME' and 'COCKSUCKER' and similar stuff. "Where's the camera?"
"What?"
"To document this for insurance claims," Mom said, like that should
have been the first thing on MY mind.
***
21:18 21 Sep
"Good evening, this is Sarah Tucker," Mom said on one phone line,
as Dad talked to USAA on another. "I'm sorry to be calling so late,
Mister Dobson, but my son left his car in the school parking lot
overnight, after he fixed your computers?"
***
21:20 21 Sep
"Because it happened on school property, and therefore-"
*It's not going to work,* I realized, and decided I'd sneak off to
my room before Mom got in a yelling match with Dobson.
***
21:32 21 Sep
"Ahhhhh ah ah ah ah," I said to Mike and Kim, who I had not
expected to be in my room. Well, it was more of a panicked gasping.
"We may have something," Kim smiled, and pointed either at the
computer I'd been keeping the phone tap data on, or Mike who was wearing
my headphones and concentrating. It was a Debbie sort of smile, but I
felt vaguely reassured anyway. Or I would have if I'd been wearing more
than a robe over my damp body.
***
21:38 21 Sep
"Mike?"
"Yo?"
"Could..."
"What is it, Tuck?"
"Could you stay here tonight? I think... I think the nightmares
are going to be more than I can deal with, this time."
Mike let out a breath, but before I could get upset, he nodded.
"Lemme call my folks- No, let me get your mom to call my folks," he
grinned.
***
06:01 22 Sep
"Bedoop!"
"You know," Mike said conversationally from the top bunk, "I hate
that thing, but at the same time, I have to say, it's a thousand times
better than the usual sort of alarm."
I considered this.
"Bedoop!"
"Shut up!" we yelled at the same time.
***
06:28 22 Sep
"Bill said last night, he'd put his car in the admin parking lot
today so you could go to work," Mom said thickly, before sucking down
some more coffee. "We need both of them this morning; Brian has a
project to carry to school, and we both have some errands to run."
"Okay," I nodded stupidly.
"Take the key," she said, and then realized she didn't have one in
her robe, so she went to go find one.
***
06:47 22 Sep
I finally woke up. "Ahh! Mike! What about the stuff in the back
of my car?! They're going to take it all out before Dad takes it to-"
"I snuck out and did that last night, after your mom went to bed,"
he said as he casually punched me in the shoulder several times. "And
got everything past your dad."
"Gah, gah, gah," I panted in relief, and tried to think of calming
thoughts, to slow my heart down before it burned a bearing.
"It's all in your closet," he continued calmly.
***
07:01 22 Sep
"So they impounded your car for evidence?" Jill asked, like I'd
told her to while outside.
"Yeah," I said just loud enough, I hoped, "but the cops got some
good fingerprints off the car last night, so all they have to do is
match them." Shannon didn't apparently flinch, but it was more than
possible she wasn't involved, and if she wasn't, she might just mention
it to someone who was. Not that the cops would bother; we'd called them
about vandalism before, and they just sort of shrugged and went 'Oh too
bad'. On the other hand, they said that when it was us doing it, too.
***
08:01 22 Sep
"Eugene Tucker, go to the principal's office."
I just stared at Mrs. Vangormer, because I couldn't believe-
"Eugene!"
***
08:06 22 Sep
The computers worked, and Dobson said he was sorry about my car,
but the school's insurance wouldn't pay for it. Like there was any
question about that. "And your mother said that your father would leave
a car for you in the admin lot today?" he confirmed.
"Uh... yeah." I vaguely recalled something like that.
***
08:11 22 Sep
"I did get out of the other Saturday detention, though," I told the
guys as we left.
"Man!" George commented, sounding impressed.
***
14:04 22 Sep
Sure enough, there was Dad's car. And, luckily, I had the key to
it, so I could get in easily.
***
15:07 22 Sep
"Where's your car?" Ricky asked as he climbed in. I'd had to wave
and honk at the same time, not an easy thing to do, to get his attention
so he would come over and get in.
"It's in the shop," I said. "Needs some stuff done to it. This is
my dad's."
***
16:33 22 Sep
"I think we have a perpetrator," Mike said over the phone.
"Oh boy oh boy! Who is it?"
"Do you have a scrambler-"
"Never mind." Operational security was always hard to remember,
and always a good thing to practice.
***
19:21 22 Sep
"You got any spray paint?" asked Randy Wieland.
"No, I don't think so," said Linda Chassell. "Why?"
"Oh, no reason. You know any place we could get some?"
"For what?"
"Nothin', nothin'," Randy chuckled.
I hit stop and pulled my headphones off. "Fairly suggestive, yeah,
but-"
"Segment two," Mike pointed, and so I loaded that up, reset my
headphones on my head, and played that one.
"Dude!" Randy almost shouted. "You shoulda SEEN what we did to the
little faggot's car!"
"Which one?" asked Linda.
"That faggot Tucker!"
"Oh dear," I said out loud. "You stupid motherfucker."
"Wait 'til you see it on Monday!" Randy crowed in my headphones at
the same time.
Operational security was always hard to remember, and always a good
thing to practice.
***
19:29 22 Sep
Mike was simply fiendish. "Fiendish!" I gasped out, then started
laughing again. This time, I did fall off the bed, and onto George, who
was doing basically the same thing. He kicked me, but I was so
hysterical it didn't even hurt.
***
"Oh, you want some too, huh?!" - Hudson
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+ ==[-------- Ellen Hayes @>--,--'--- ellen@barkingduck.net +
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